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Review: UFC 57 Super Saturday
By Luke | February 4, 2006
By: Luke Nicholson
Here. We. Go. Usual Intro stuff to start the show. Randy Couture sounds very confident, that’s not a good sign for Liddell. Early favorite for line of the night: “Chuck Liddell has already reached legendary statusâ€. I’m not so sure of that.
I picked Randy Couture going into the show. On this one I picked more with my heart, than my head. With that said, with someone as dangerous as Chuck Liddell, it only takes one slip, or one mistake and he’ll take advantage, and put you to sleep.
Anyway, on with the action.
1) Nick Diaz vs. Joe Riggs – Riggs is now training with Miletich, which should help him. Billy Rush, Jeremy Horn, and Tim Sylvia corner him for this match. The fight starts with Riggs throwing a low kick. They go to the ground, and then immediately back up onto their feet into the clinch. Riggs then connects with a combination. Diaz ends the round with a cut on his forehead. Rogan mentions that he thinks Riggs is gassing. We’ll see. Diaz then rocks Riggs, he had him hurt, but couldn’t finish him. They continue to trade blows to finish the round. I thought both guys landed some good shots, but Diaz gets the edge due to the knockdown. Round two – Riggs comes out and controls the fight standing. He continued to land shots on Diaz. Diaz landed some too, but didn’t do as much damage. Fight went to the ground where Diaz went for a couple submissions, but couldn’t finish. At the end of the round, Rogan gives the round to Diaz. What? I thought it went to Riggs. Third round – Not much of note took place. Both guys continued to try to strike, neither did much damage. Fight went to the ground, and Riggs landed a good elbow. That was one of the few solid shots in the round. Diaz talked trash the entire fight. He deserves credit for taking the shots that Riggs threw, but he struggled to counter. Rogan felt Riggs needed to stop Diaz to win. What fight was he watching? Riggs take the unanimous decision. I thought it was a close fight, but the judges made the right call.
2) Renato Sobral vs. Mike Van Arsdale – This match was short and uneventful. Both guys clinched to start. The fight then went to the ground, where Van Arsdale had side control for a moment, but Sobral then took over and got his back. Then, it was REALLY over. Sobral cinched in a rear-naked choke and Van Arsdale tapped. Sobral motioned like he should have the belt. Well, you might just get your shot.
Next, the return of Frank Mir. UFC did a nice little promo package before this fight hyping the return, and talking about the severity of the injury that he suffered in the motorcycle incident.
3) Frank Mir vs. Marcio Cruz – There was much speculation about how Mir would look in his return to UFC after a year and a half off. Well, we found out how tough it is return from an injury and immediately compete at a high level. Mir tried to strike with Cruz, even that didn’t go well. Mir slipped and nearly fell over. Eventually, the fight went to the ground. Cruz controlled him from the ground and eventually got side control. Cruz threw a punch, followed by an elbow that combined to open up a NASTY~! Cut next to Frank Mir’s eye. A good 2/3rds of Mir’s face was covered in blood. Herb Dean stopped the fight to have the cut looked at. He asked Mir if he wanted to continue, or quit. Mir said, “I can’t see out of my left eye, but I’ll keep fightingâ€. In the immortal words of Joe Rogan, “What a Warriorâ€. I wonder if Ultimate Warrior will file a suit against UFC for using his name. After the fight was re-started, Cruz continued to pummel Mir, who had gassed early, and couldn’t defend himself against even a NOVICE striker. Herb Dean then stopped the fight.
Cruz did this ridiculous dance in celebration after the fight. Some people just shouldn’t dance. Its just that simple. Afterwards, Rogan asked Cruz’ translator to ask Cruz to walk us through the fight. He did his best, its tough to understand the fighters when they have to speak through a translator. Well, it is for me anyway.
4) Brandon Vera vs. Justin Eilers. Eilers needs to consult with Andrei Arlovski on fixing that hairstyle. Early on they clinched against the fence. Eilers caught Vera with a shot, which Vera quickly recovered from. The fight moves back to the center, where Vera hits Eilers with a couple really good body kicks. Then, WHAM~! Vera catches Eilers with a head kick that sent Eilers flopping face-first to the mat, in Ric Flair-like fashion. On the way down, Vera also caught him with a knee. This was impressive for Vera, but it was still just JUSTIN EILERS. Hopefully, Vera stays at heavyweight. UFC needs some warm bodies in that division. Vera was very entertaining in his post-fight interview, inviting everyone to his wedding tomorrow. This was fun.
Then, it was Brandon Lee Hinkle versus Jeff “Don’t call me George Steele†Monson. Monson should play up the gimmick and tear open the padding on the post and eat the stuffing.
5) Brandon Lee Hinkle vs. Jeff Monson. This fight immediately went to the ground. Mostly a grappling match early, with Monson getting the better of the exchange. They got back up, and traded blows. Fight went back to the ground, where Hinkle tried to take Monson’s back, but failed. Monson eventually got sided control, and started trying to land elbows. Monson then got Hinkle in a reverse guillotine from the top, and tapped Hinkle with it. Decent match, but definitely not PPV caliber.
Now, its time for the MAIN EVENT~! Randy Couture entered to “Thunderstruck†by ACDC~!. Randy is so cool. Chuck Liddell entered to his usual rap intro, while doing his weird little dance. Oh well, whatever works for ya.
6) Randy “The Natural†Couture vs. Chuck Liddell. Both guys start very cautiously. Liddell is waiting for his shot. Couture is looking for the takedown. Both guys connect with a couple shots, and then they engage and Randy gets the takedown. But, Chuck gets right back up. DAMNIT. Couture continues to neutralize him with the clinch. He’s going for the sweep, but can’t get it. Liddell is looking frustrated at the end of round one. Round two starts the same as round one, EXCEPT, as Randy moves in towards Liddell, he slips while throwing a punch, and Liddell counters with a jab and knocks him out. DARN. Liddell does his usual little celebration after the fight. The crowd heat for this fight was AWESOME. The fans chanted for both guys, and cheered when Liddell won. Chuck cut an AWFUL promo after the fight. He could barely stumble through his sponsors, let alone set up his next fight. But then, RANDY took the mic. The Natural then went on to announce that this would be his last fight in the octagon and that he was moving on. That’s too bad. Although, hopefully Dana’s smart enough to keep him around in a PR role to speak for the company. He’s just too good of an ambassador for MMA to let him go. UFC should have had the foresight to have a video tribute ready if he lost. That would have been a fitting way to end the show.
7) Next, another prelim. Gilbert Aldana vs. Paul Buentello. I don’t think too highly of either of these two, but, the first round was a WAR. Both guys took the best the other had to give, and then kept coming. Aldana looked tired early. It may have been due to conditioning, or just first time UFC gitters. Either way, he looked gassed. Buentello, eventually took over and opened a cut on Aldana’s face. Neither of these two, especially Aldana looks like guys who are worth keeping around. This fight was the perfect example of why UFC should focus on the lighterweight classes. Riggs/Diaz had a very competitive fight at 170, and there are probably tons more at 155, or even 185 that would have blown this fight out of the water. Anyway, Buentello eventually finishes this fight with strikes. Its totally unbelievable that Rogan can push this guy with a straight face.
So that was it. In all it was good night of fights. The only problem I had with this card going in was that Dana White seems to prefer big sloppy heavyweights over slicker more skilled lightweights, which really hurts the quality of the PPVs. Hopefully, it doesn’t turn into a situation where the tv shows are better than the PPVs because the tv shows have the lighterweight guys on them. UFC needs to continue to do strong business on PPV.
Topics: All Topics, Luke Nicholson, MMA, UFC | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I think UFC’s current use of lots of heavyweights is a desperate hope that some heavyweight that they use will put up a good fight and can be built up to face Arlovski. Or it culd just be that they have strong heavyweight bias. Personally I would love to see the lightweights back.
Sad to see Randy retire, but its better to do it now than latter down the road after hes become a parody of himself.
Vera did a pretty good job against Eilers which is a really good thing seeing as Mir really has to start all over again.
http://www.mma-snark.com
“Is there even a point to do a post-fight interview with a guy who doesn’t speak English?”
Yeah, lets just ignore the guy who beat the shit out of the former HW champ (with translator in tow).
He’ll, he even provided the quote of the night:
“The UFC tells me who to fight, and I kill them.”
I missed that last comment by Cruz.
Just like in Boxing, the HWs and LHWs are the ‘flagship’ weight classes of MMA. Most casual fans want to see big (often sloppy) KOs rather than better technique or more competitive battles. And unlike in Boxing, where guys like Manny Pacquiao, Marco Antonio Barrera, Diego Corrales & Erik Morales in the lower weight classes have gained huge followings (as does the perpetual punching bag of Boxing, Arturo Gatti) because of their crowd pleasing style, I’m not certain if the fans are enticed by a guy who might be a slick submission artist at a lower weight class as they would by a wildly swinging maniac headhunting (since it seems like many of the casual fans are also big Boxing fans). Limiting the type of fighter to a slugger probably does hurt the lower divisions in MMA as there aren’t as many headhunter-type guys in the UFC, currently.
The Vera family promos were great and the best comedy of the night, outside Eilers 2nd world class Ric Flair face first pratfall. Even Buentello woke up and cut a better promo than Road Warrior Chuck.
“The UFC tells me who to fight, and I kill them.â€
They could do such awesome things with the interpreter, you don’t even know.
Interpreter…..heck, they need mouthpiece managers. Even Chxck could benefit from a Grand Wizard on the mic while he throws up the X arm sign and glares menacingly at the camera.